Qualitative Analysis (ethnography)

In grad school, I studied Qualitative Analysis under Dr. Shirley Drew at Pittsburg State University‘s Communication Department. Below is the second part of my response to a final question about qualitative analysis in the field.

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Auctioneers in Columbus, Kansas

I conducted a qualitative study of the communication and community at an auction house located in Columbus, Kansas during the fall semester of 2001 at Pittsburg State University. This study took me on a journey through the qualitative approach to research. As a journalist I had performed similar observations and interviews, but never before had I the freedom to involve myself in the event and the written evaluation of that event so freely. While I was cautious at first, I came away with a better understanding of the usefulness of this qualitative approach to research. Besides the understanding of this approach, I also found a research method that melds well with my experiences as a journalist and one that I am sure to use again. Continue reading

Brochures or booklets?

I just had a friend ask me about how we connect people at ResLife…

How does Res keep everyone informed of all the ministries/opportunities at the church? The church I’m part of now wants to make cards for each ministry so people can choose whatever interests them but it’s too expensive to do it that way.

Do you guys just have one big brochure or do you do one for each ministry? Any feedback/tips would be greatly appreciated!

K,
We’ve toyed with this in several ways. We’ve done the individual ministry brochures, and we’ve done the one book with everybody’s info.

Currently, we’re moving away from the individual ministry brochures because of the time, printing and effort involved with those. Using our “Get Connected” booklets we provide people with a complete list of our ministries, departments, pastors, etc. This is updated about every four months.

For our small groups we have a booklet called “Get ResLife” that has our life groups listed. We also have these listed online. Continue reading

E-mail choice and social responsibility

A recent post on Tech Scoop shows that rates of social involvement when it comes to giving donations. Check out these charts:

Number of Transactions by e-mail provider

Number of Transactions by e-mail provider

From the stats, mac users are the most active when it comes to being involved with giving donations. While they are active at giving, these active hip young users are out given when it comes to amount by the savvy trendsetters using Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and Hotmail for their e-mail services.

Amount of donations by users of specific e-mail providers

Amount of donations by users of specific e-mail providers

What’s this say about e-mail providers, users, and social responsibility? Among many things, it would seem that these leading e-mail providers have connected with a demographic that not only says they want to be involved and responsible, but actually do! I’m curious about the age range of these user groups and if this would indicate anything about a younger generation starting to be more active in giving even though the amounts may be small. A grass roots development in people connecting with causes could lead to marketing plans and campaigns based not only on ages, location, etc., but on e-mail providers.

What are some other ways we could use this info to focus on those who actually do take action?

Auction House Social Club — Reflections

A multi-part entry from observations at an auction house. Starts here.

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Reflections

Meeting members of the Auction House Social Club like Black Jack and the many others who contributed to my research at the Columbus Auction has confirmed what my dad’s story about my deaf uncle pointed out to me years ago. These members have taught me that auctions truly are more than a place of financial enterprising. Auctions are “clubs” of social interaction built on a sense of community derived from extended communication and association.

gun1As a result of my research, I also realized that those who attain the high status of member in good standing are not your every day fly-by-night shoppers who are out only for a bargain. No, high status at the AHSC is attained by those of a different breed–a breed of people who are willing to weather the cold or heat of the seasons, willing to spend time as well as money and willing to accept others while sharing a part of themselves. They do it because they enjoy it.

As I reflected on my research, I realized that it was a continuation of a quest for community that began at one of the first auctions I can recall: the sale of my grandfather’s service station where the men lounged near the old potbellied coal stove. I remember the excitement as my cousins and I played hide and seek weaving our way through the crowd while the auctioneer blared out his song. As a child I was exemplifying what now understand: the location of and items at an auction are the fragile strings that bring people together for fellowship and allow the individuals to meld into community. As I told the auctioneer on my last visit to the AHSC, someday I want to return and see this community again-to see Black Jack and the others because I now see them as more than subjects of a study. They are members of a community I’ve tried to understand.

 

To be continued next week…

Copyright 2001 Michael Shead

All references available: https://drypixel.com/159/auction-house-social-club-references/

Auction House Social Club — Masquerade

A multi-part entry from observations at an auction house. Starts here.

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Membership Masquerade

At the Columbus Auction, there was a myriad of characters who paraded down the auction aisles every week and each character had a part to play. There was window man, carousel lady, auctioneer, assistant, junk dealer, antiquer, entertainment seeker (who just came to see the festivities), and, during my time at the auction, the participant observer among many others.

Attendance at this masquerade was a required part of the membership fee at the AHSC. While reasons for attending were unique to a person, each member chose to be there week after week because without them the AHSC would not exist and their presence would be missed.

Each member played his or her part in the masquerade. For the crowd, the masks remained up but, in private circles, members relaxed in the shade and masks fell aside revealing a common denominator. As members, everyone was a participant-friend. Those who returned to the auction floor maintained their role in the masquerade, but those privileged to the conversation knew they caught a glimpse of the man or woman behind the curtain. 

In October of 2001,I met the masquerading window man in a moment of repose. As the auctioneer slowly made his way down a row of items, 73-year-old Bill Osburn sat on a small table waiting for the auctioneer to reach an item he had his eye on. Like a golfer waiting for his turn on the green, he sat in the sunlight just watching the activity around him. His worn plaid shirt was threadbare in places and both his shirt and pants showed specks of white paint that had splattered during a recent painting project. He had an easy-going demeanor, a will to talk, and stories to share to listening ears.

“I grew up in the 1920s,” he told me. “I’ve been a plumber, bellboy, and even worked for a tanner, but now I do some painting and sell windows. That’s mostly what come to the auction for-windows.”

Although he masquerades as the window man at the auction, Bill lowered his mask to reveal what he really loves to do-play the guitar and sing.

The old man took me over to his truck and played a few tunes on his guitar. One of the songs he sang was made famous by country singer John Michael Montgomery. The song told about a romantic relationship that began at an auction:

guitar-bill

Bill Osburn breaks from the bidding area to play his guitar for me.

Well, the auctioneer was goin’ about a mile a minute. /He was takin’ bids an’ callin’ them out loud, / An’ I guess I was really gettin’ in it / ‘Cause I just shouted out above the crowd! /An’ I said, hey, pretty lady, won’cha gi’me a sign. / I’d give anything to make you mine all mine. I’ll do your biddin’ an’ be at your beckon call. . . . / I’m goin’ once, goin’ twice, / I’m sold! On the lady in the long black dress. / Well she won my heart it was no contest . . ./ Yeah, we found love on the auction block, An’ I hauled her heart away. / Now we still love to laugh about / The way we met that day (Fagan and Royer, 1997).

Even country songwriters have recognized the relational value of auctions. In their song Fagan and Royer romanticized the relationships that can be built when people get together, communicate, and find common ground in the things that bring them to that location.

While the unmasked Bill Osburn has a hankering for the six strings, at the auction he was after a friendly chat and a few windowpanes.

Continue reading

Auction House Social Club — Sharing Tales

A multi-part entry from observations at an auction house. Starts here.

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Sharing Tales

The sharing of stories is an integral part of the AHSC. The telling of one’s story and exchanging of tales are part of the building blocks that support the AHSC. Without the communication of individual experiences in the form of tales and stories, the community itself would be very fragile indeed. Adelman and Frey (1997) noted that communication is more than a single variable in the equation that makes a community. Rather, they describe community as the result of communication. “Community itself is best regarded as a phenomenon that emerges from communication” and “Communication is thus the essential, defining feature-the medium-of community” (p. 5).

Part of the communication that occurs among AHSC members are the stories of great deals they made or almost made. These conversations build rapport among the members as they share in the common feeling of loss and hope for another opportunity in the future. 

black-jack-billIn an interview with AHSC member, L. Horton, she told me about a bargain that got away:

I walked in and there was this huge statue. It was a bronze statue. Huge. So I knew who had signed it. It was signed and everything. One out of six. This guy was going to sell it to me for twenty-five hundred dollars, if I remember right. That’s iffy. It was right in the neighborhood of twenty-five hundred dollars and I could have probably got it for less. Well, at the time I was getting married, fixin’ to move up here and I took my fiancé and I said, “Hon. I think that this is a realRemington.” 

You know, the guy at the store thought it was a fake.

Long story short, I didn’t get it. He said no way are we going to get a fork lift and move that thing, you know, so many miles. I had the money and everything, you know, but he said, “No.”

I went back a couple of years ago and I walked in . . . and said, “What happened to that Remington you had in here?” I said, “Remember that big statue you had in the front of this place -that Frederick Remington?”

He said, “I gave it away.” He said, “Really, I got three thousand dollars out of it, but I gave it away.”

And I said, “You did?”

He said, “Yeah.” He said the guy who bought it had it appraised for a million dollars. And that’s a true story. And it was a real Remington.

And I think that has always sparked knowing there is stuff out there. It’s just hard to come by. You don’t think there is things out there like that, but there is.

AHSC members trade stories of loss and gain like fishermen swapping stories at the coffee shop on a Monday morning. As they sharing about the “one that got away” the members establish and sustain the community of the auction by taking on “shared meanings” that they find through the telling of their personal narratives (Adelman Frey, 1997, p. 5).

Conversations about loss and gain also help to preserve the community itself by planting hope that the mother lode or that big fish is out there waiting to be found. Just as the fellow fishermen felt a loss along with the old man in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952), members at the auction identify with each other through the sharing of stories that relay common experiences. They can identify with that loss and hope that such a break will come to them some day.

As heard Horton’s story, realized that I feel a sense of camaraderie with her because of my own experience of loss at an auction. I once found a nice camera and a great lens at an auction. With other things to do, left the auction and later found out that the camera sold for next to nothing. Only making the sense of loss greater, the auctioneer later told me I should have said something to him, because he would have sold it while I was there had he known I wanted to bid on it.

To be continued next week…

Copyright 2001 Michael Shead

All references available: https://drypixel.com/159/auction-house-social-club-references/